"the mourners are aching visionaries"

"What is suffering?  When something prized or loved is ripped away or never granted--work, someone loved, recognition of one's dignity, life without physical pain--that is suffering.  Or rather, that's when suffering happens.  What it is, I do not know.  For many days I had been reflecting on it.  Then suddenly, as I watched the flicker of orange-pink evening lights on almost still water, the thought overwhelmed me: I understand nothing of it.  Of pain, yes: cut fingers, broken bones.  Of sorrow and suffering, nothing at all.  Suffering is a mystery as deep as any in our existence.  It is not of course a mystery whose reality some doubt.  Suffering keeps its face hid from each while making itself known to all.  We are one in suffering.  Some are wealthy, some bright; some athletic, some admired.  But we all suffer.  For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering.  Love in our world is suffering love.  Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much.  Suffering is for the loving....In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer."  --Nick Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

This week I read Nick Wolterstorff's book, Lament for a Son.  What a profound book, so honest and raw.  So many sections spoke to me, and still are, so I'm not going to be able to process them all tonight.  

Like many good books do, this one brought up more questions than it gave answers.  Perhaps the questions are more important than the answers, or even more helpful.  

"'Blessed are those who mourn.'  What can it mean?  One can understand why Jesus hails those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, why he hails the merciful, why he hails the pure in heart, why he hails the peacemakers, why he hails those who endure under persecution.  These are qualities of character which belong to the life of the kingdom.  But why does he hail the mourners of the world?  Why cheer tears?  It must be that mourning is also a quality of character that belongs to the life of his realm.  Who then are the mourners?  The mourners are those who have caught a glimpse of God’s new day, who ache with all their being for that day’s coming, and who break out into tears when confronted with its absence.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace there is no one blind and who ache whenever they see someone unseeing.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one hungry and who ache whenever they see someone starving.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one falsely accused and who ache whenever they see someone imprisoned unjustly.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one who fails to see God and who ache whenever they see someone unbelieving.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one who suffers oppression and who ache whenever they see someone beat down.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm there is no one without dignity and who ache whenever they see someone treated with indignity.  They are the ones who realize that in God’s realm of peace there is neither death nor tears and who ache whenever they see someone crying tears over death.  The mourners are aching visionaries.  Such people Jesus blesses; he hails them, he praises them, he salutes them.  And he gives them the promise that the new day for whose absence they ache will come.  They will be comforted.  The Stoics of antiquity said: Be calm.  Disengage yourself.  Neither laugh nor weep.  Jesus says: Be open to the wounds of the world.  Mourn humanity’s weeping, be wounded by humanity’s wounds, be in agony over humanity’s agony.  But do so in the good cheer that a day of peace is coming."  --Wolterstorff

Blessed are those who mourn.... I've always liked that beatitude, but I never realized how different is is from the others.  I never realized that mourning is part of God's kingdom.  When I think of mourning, I think of women covered in heavy, black dresses, wailing as they follow a casket to a cemetery.  This view is a little bit different, a little less dramatic.  This is mourning that I do.  This is the mourning that I feel when I think about Honduras and my time there.  If this is what mourning is, I am one who mourns.  And yet, that is not all I do.  My identity is deeper than that.  I can find joy in those same places and situations.  That lament does not exclude other feelings, even though it may feel like it does.  I'm learning that I tend to try to get rid of negative emotions and feelings.  I try to take away any reason for lament.  I try to overcome instead of coping.  Perhaps, that isn't as it should be.  

"The mourners are aching visionaries."  That resonates in my soul so deeply.  That is who I want to be.  Perhaps, that is who I am, to an extent.  Mourners see how things should be while seeing what should not be.  Mourners have hope for a future when everything screams that it has no hope.  

"And I know now about helplessness—of what to do when there is nothing to do.  I have learned coping.  We live in a time and place where, over and over, when confronted with something unpleasant we pursue not coping but overcoming.  Often we succeed.  Most of humanity has not enjoyed and does not enjoy such luxury.  Death shatters our illusion that we can make do without coping.  When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer heat with air-conditioning—when we have overcome all these and much more besides, then there will abide two things with which we must cope: the evil in our hearts and death.  There are those who vainly think that some technology will even enable us to overcome the former.  Everyone knows that there is no technology for overcoming death.  Death is left for God’s overcoming."  --Wolterstorff

I think that Wolterstorff is learning to believe that lament and joy can coexist.  This is the definition of bittersweet.  It is hard to live this way.  I don't want to live like that, because it hurts.  It is painful.  It feels like my heart is being ripped out of my chest.  But maybe it's better this way.  Maybe it is better to feel a jumble of emotions rather than just one, because I am formed and refined this way.  It's harder, but it's more worthwhile.  When I take the long road to process something, rather than a quick fix, the wound heals better; it's more than just a band aid.  And although I feel like something of a sad soul, this slow and painful processing leads to learning rather than guilt.  And in this process, I'm not solely morose.  I will still laugh.  I will still be awed.  Life will be bittersweet.  

Finally, Nick says: "'By his wounds we are healed.'  In the wounds of Christ is humanity's healing.  Do our wounds also heal?  This gaping wound in my chest--does it heal?  What before I did not see, I now see; what before I did not feel, I now feel.  But this raw bleeding cavity which needs no much healing, does it heal while waiting for healing?  We are the body of Christ on earth.  Does that mean that some of our wounds are his wounds, and that some of our wounds heal?  Is our suffering ever redemptive?  I suppose the blood of the martyrs sometimes was.  It was an instrument of God's peace.  But my suffering over my son, which I did not choose and would never choose: does that bring peace? How? To whom?  Is there something more to say than that death is the mortal enemy of peace?  Can suffering over death--not living at peace with death but suffering in the face of death--bring peace?"

Those are my questions.  And I think--I hope--the answer is that our wounds do heal.  I wouldn't be who I am without my sufferings.  Would I be able to help people in the ways that I do without being shaped by those sufferings?  I don't think so.  And so when I ask why something happened or is happening, perhaps there will be an answer someday.  Maybe there won't be a reason, but I can hope in the redemption of my suffering.